The Wild Lands of the North. City Ruinous.
2352.
49th Year of the Reign of King Caspian X.
Sapphyre.
The northern wilds stretched before them, an untamed expanse of frostbitten earth and jagged hills. The wind howled between towering pine trees, carrying the scent of ice and old magic. Snow clung to the roots of twisted trees, and the ground beneath their boots was hard with the lingering bite of winter.
They had followed the tracks for days, each step drawing them closer to the ruins that loomed on the horizon – the City Ruinous. It lay sprawled across the distant hills like the bones of a long-dead beast, its shattered towers piercing the sky, its colossal bridges cracked and broken like the ribs of a giant.
Even in ruin, it was monstrous in scale, the remnants of a time when giants had built with stone the size of houses, carving their dominion into the land itself.
As they neared, the broken arches and crumbling pillars cast jagged shadows under the rising moon. Massive doorways yawned open like gaping mouths, and streets wide enough to fit entire armies lay empty, paved with cracked stones worn smooth by time. A hush had settled over the place, a silence that felt unnatural, as if the city itself was holding its breath.
Sapphyre shivered, though not from the cold. It was a place of ghosts and forgotten power, a graveyard of a civilization too mighty for its own survival.
Rilian walked beside her, his face unreadable in the dim light. He had been different since they left the underground world behind – more sure of himself, more in command of his own choices. The wild lands suited him. Under the open sky, there was something untamed in his gaze, something that reminded her that once, he had been a prince who rode through these lands, free and unbroken.
He glanced at her, his indigo eyes catching the moonlight. "This place feels cursed."
Sapphyre exhaled slowly. "Maybe it is."
And yet, they pressed on, deeper into the ruins, toward whatever answers—or dangers—awaited them there.
She crouched, running her fingers over the deep grooves that scored the frostbitten earth. The indentations were old but clear – wagon wheels, their weight pressing down hard enough to scar the land. The bandits had come this way, but why? What lay in the ruins worth taking? Had they been seeking more people to capture, more lives to barter away in the shadows? The thought made her stomach twist.
Rilian knelt beside her, tracing one of the wheel ruts with his gloved hand. "They weren't just passing through," he murmured. "They stopped here for a reason."
Sapphyre nodded, her gaze narrowing as she followed the tracks with her eyes. The deep-set grooves disappeared into the darkness beyond the ruins, swallowed by the skeletal remains of the city. Whatever the bandits had been searching for, they had found it here – or left something behind.
A gust of wind howled through the crumbling streets, sending a flurry of dead leaves skittering across the stones.
Sapphyre rose to her feet, brushing the frost from her hands.
And then the near-dusk found Rilian had constructing a small fire in the shadows of the ruins as Sapphyre set up their tent upon what had once been the raised dais that the throne of the Giant Queen had sat upon.
As the sky bled into night, Sapphyre lay down her cloak for them to sit upon, sitting in silence as the warmth of the fire and the warmth of Rilian's body chased away the coldness that threatened to creep into her very bones.
A great witch had constructed the city that the giants had inhabited long ago.
But that spectacular city had long fallen to ruin, and nothing was left of the once-great civilization but a few crumbling marble walls and the toppled beams. Remnants of giant stones, launched by giants' trebuchets lay here and there, a reminder of the war that had laid claim to the once-great city.
That she had not seen.
Nothing was left of the mosaics that had once decorated the floors, bright blues and greens and violets; there was nothing left of the diaphanous cloth embroidered with suns and stars fluttering in a breeze.
She usually avoided going to places that she had been before. For the City of the Giants, as it had been called, had been the first place that Emerylda had taken her when she'd gotten her rings, before she had taken her oaths and had been bound to Knighthood.
To visit an old friend, Emerylda had said. Though the woman had been cold and unfeeling, and not at all how her sister had described her.
"What are you thinking of so intently?" Rilian's voice startled her from the very thoughts he'd questioned.
"The throne sat upon this dais," she said idly, looking up at the darkened sky as the fire crackled merrily, at the stars that shone down on them.
Were they watching?
A great golden throne, decorated with starbursts and moons. The woman who had sat upon it had been smaller than the other giants but had stood over seven feet tall; and she had been perhaps the most beautiful woman that Sapphyre had ever laid her eyes on. Her skin had been as white as salt, and her braided hair had been the colour of starlight. And at six and ten, Sapphyre had been in utter awe of the woman with her charming smile.
The dais remained, though the throne did not.
Rilian glanced at her sidelong, his indigo eyes puzzled. "You speak as if you were here. But you said so yourself, the city fell sometime in the Dark Age."
"Time works differently when one travels between worlds, and it does not always work in the same way."
She twisted the ring on her finger – one that had been a pair, though no magic was held in that yellow stone anymore. "Emerylda brought me once, before my ten and sixth birthday. It had been beautiful. And the giants…the giants were not what they are now. Their queen had made them something…more. They had library for those that hungered for knowledge, and looms for creating beautiful things; forges that never slept."
In her mind she was not surrounded by wind and snow and darkness – it was diaphanous cloth embroidered with suns and stars fluttering in a breeze; pillars reaching to the sky. She was six and ten, celebrating with the giants of the wild north, watching as her sister and the queen of the giants performed amazing feats with their magic, to the delight and wonder of all.
It had all been so much easier back then.
Everything had been so much more simple.
Back then she never would have gone against Emerylda's wishes, even such a simple one as staying in the Dark City.
Back then she never would have watched a dryad be taken away for not being able to pay tithe.
She looked down at her hand, at the silver ring.
At Rilian's hand so close to hers.
His face was so close, his dark hair ruffled from the wind, his beard looked ever so tempting to touch in the firelight.
In that moment she would not have changed a thing in her past, whatever her regrets were.
And for once, she had no words; caught in his gaze.
His gaze dropped to her lips and then flickered back up to her eyes.
"Sapphyre, I can't keep pretending we're just friends."
Her heart stuttered.
"But my sister–"
"I don't care about your sister, she means nothing to me," his gaze burned, but still, he did not touch her. "And Sapphyre, Sapphyre you are everything."
"Rilian…"
"Tell me you don't feel the same, Sapphyre. Tell me you do not feel something for me, and I will never mention it again."
Her pulse thundered.
She couldn't.
Her mouth opened and closed.
Her heart thudded painfully, her mind spinning in chaotic circles. Everything he had said, the way he looked at her, had ripped through the walls she had built.
She tried to control her breathing, to control her mind. And still the words would not come to her; her mind was filled with nothing but the man before her and the way he searched her face. Desperately, longingly and with something so much more.
"You can't, can you," there was a smile in his voice, and then his hands were on his cheeks. Rough and tender. "You can't tell me you feel nothing." She could not pull her gaze from his.
And she couldn't lie to him, not when he'd learn to read everything in her face. From the slight tremble of her lips to the way her eyes widened ever so slightly upon the realization.
She was powerless to stop his lips crashing to hers. No, not powerless.
She did not try to stop it.
She met him half-way, her hands tangling into his hair; those thick dark locks that she'd been longing to touch.
He was her sister's.
She shouldn't want him for herself.
She couldn't want him for herself.
But oh, she did.
The warmth that spread through her was hotter than the magic of the Heart.
Another spike of heat coursed through her and all thoughts lefts hers as his lips met hers again and again, pulling her closer, pulling her into his lap. And she kissed him back as if she were starved for touch. Her hands moved just as much as his, roaming his back and clutching fistfuls of the dark fabric.
His large hands rested either side of her face and neck, his thumbs lightly stroking her cheeks. Tenderly.
Sapphyre's heart raced, thundering in her chest as his lips captured hers again, his breath mingling with hers. She lost herself in the heat of him, the strength of him – the way he made her feel both grounded and weightless at the same time.
He broke their kiss, pulling back a scant inch to rest his brow upon hers. Their breaths mingled, both of them near panting. And Rilian's eyes were so dark she could not tell where pupil and iris met.
"Sapphyre…"
He was not Emerylda's.
He was hers.
And then his lips were on hers once more and she didn't see the shadow that fell over them, her senses overcome by everything that was Rilian.
His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him, and she let herself go, surrendering to the need that had been building inside her. His hands slid to her back, pulling her closer, as if he couldn't get enough of her.
"Sapphyre," he murmured, his voice thick. "If I don't stop now—"
She pressed her lips to his, silencing him, her kiss deep and insistent. Her hands tugged at his cloak, pulling him closer, her body a desperate invitation to let go of the restraint that had held them both back.
"Then don't," she breathed against his lips, her heart racing, every ounce of her body aching.
He groaned, deep and low, as if that one command shattered the final wall between them.
His hands were everywhere – tracing the curve of her waist, cupping her face, moving with a hunger that mirrored her own. Sapphyre felt the sharp edge of control slip away, her thoughts disintegrating under the weight of his touch. Her breath was ragged, her chest rising and falling in rhythm with his own.
And when his lips met hers again, it was as if the world had disappeared, leaving nothing but the frantic beating of their hearts and the fire that had sparked between them.
No more hesitation, no more distance as he pressed her into the cloak she had carefully laid out.
Then pain blossomed through her skull.
